Ala
Normal Persona: Rose Pronouns: She/her/hers Power: Weather manipulation Ala can control weather conditions in her vicinity. There isn't a hard limit on the distance within which she can manipulate weather. Instead, manipulating weather closer to her gives her more complete and finer control. Within a few feet from her body her control is so complete and complex that she can form the air around herself into a nearly impenetrable shield of conflicting wind currents and layered zones of pressure while keeping herself in a comfortable pocket of gentle air (and without suffocating herself). At the limits of her power's reach she can only limitedly influence already-present weather conditions. She can't generate anything from nothing, so for instance she can't make rain in a place with no moisture in the air. Strengths: * Intelligence * Creativity * Deliberately leads others to underestimate her (and is very successful at it) * Travels in a shield of wind currents and air pressure Weaknesses: * The poor public opinion she cultivates can have some negative side effects * Hedonism, vices, and lack of inhibitions can leave her vulnerable * Alcoholic * LOTS of enemies Appearance: Ala takes a fairly unique approach to the concept of hiding her normal persona. Rather than a concealing "supersuit" she wears revealing and provocative clothing and instead relies on more subtle means of disguise. She typically wears a low-cut, short-sleeved shirt in a flattering shade of deep green. She wears pants that come down to just below her knees, in brown, not quite so tight as leggings but not leaving much more to the imagination. She wears nice, albeit casual, shoes. (Because of her weather control, warm and protective attire is never a concern for her.) Her hair is thick, wavy, and brown (actually a high-quality wig), and her eyes are also brown (colored contacts). She does wear makeup as well, but only waterproof, smear-resistant makeup that can withstand her fun as well as her fights. Personality: Ala is, first and foremost, hedonistic. She loves being the center of attention and one of the easiest places to find her is in one of her favorite bars, drinking and chatting with everyone else there who enjoys her conversation. The people who gravitate towards her despite (and just as often because of) her reputation find someone as non-judgemental and interesting to talk to as she is pleasant to look at. She isn't completely incautious, though. Aside from, of course, not letting anyone but herself and the bartenders handle her drinks, she has practiced giving the appearance of drinking continuously without actually letting herself get too incapacitated. That way she can always defend herself in a worst-case scenario. About half of the time she can be found in gay bars specifically. If she can't be found in a bar, the second easiest place to find her is in bed with someone. Preferably multiple someones. Ala makes no secret of her rather active sex life. That said, it's well known that if there's no bondage, she's not interested (and she's strictly a sub). It's also known that she has a policy about never sleeping with the same person twice. The general belief is that this is to prevent her getting bored. That was initially a concern, but it was allayed fairly early on. In truth, it's to prevent her forming attachments to people. Ala's existence is one of constant movement. She can't afford to tie herself to someone emotionally. (Of course, this doesn't always work - see "attachments".) Occupation: Most people only know Ala as the sexy party girl and would never imagine she does anything serious with her powers - this is very deliberate on her part. She actually has two "jobs" as a super, but nobody knows about them except her customers and certain hospital staff. What she actually does to make money as Ala is make "natural glass" jewelry using her ability to control lightning and wind. She doesn't sell her jewelry to people directly, but rather to a few scattered small jewelry shops. She discovered on accident that she can create "natural" glass when practicing her powers on a beach as a preteen (experimenting with the unique weather conditions where the sea meets the land). Now that her normal persona is a college student (and since she can make a decent amount of jewelry fairly quickly with the only limiting factor being the amount of sand she has) she uses it to supplement her income. Outside of a few specific hospitals, nobody would think Ala fights for any specific cause. The truth is she uses her powers to defend victims of (attempted or completed) sexual harassment and assault. Technically she's breaking anti-vigilante laws by doing so, but victims and the people who help them consistently look the other way. The cops in the United States of the super universe don't try to prevent or stop sexual assault any more than the ones in the United States of the real world. And just like the real world, everyone who lives there knows it. Of course a perpetrator could try to get Ala arrested for her "crime" (and she would likely face much harsher punishments than the perpetrator if they did), but she's too smart to let them identify her. Attachments: * Raz and any other of her normal persona's significant others (though they don't know it) * Jackie (not a serious attachment, but they had a fantastic one-night stand once and seeing her always reminds Ala of "that one time") * Her normal persona's friends and family (though they don't know it) Enemies: Personal enemies (they mostly clash over questions of morality, accountability, and arrogance thanks to these supers' perceptions of Ala and her perceptions of them): * The Emissary * Dante * Cathedra Occupational enemies (people she opposes due to the personal convictions she doesn't want people to know she has): * The Boss (and everyone who works for him who isn't named here) * Dollmaker * Ethos * Suture * Aceso * Any and all sexual predators Misc.: * Ala named herself after a Russian weather demon. (Her normal persona's family is Russian, although they've lived in the US for several generations.) * She only sleeps around in her super persona, whereas Jackie only does so in her normal persona. So Ala/Rose would recognize Jackie but not Malady and Jackie/Malady would recognize Ala but not Rose. * For Ala, the hardest part of maintaining her disguise is pretending not to be a total math and physics geek. * She has managed to perpetuate a belief that she's just intelligent enough to be interesting to talk to, but no smarter than that. To do this she takes advantage of the pervasive notion that beautiful women can't be intelligent. The end result is she can have an extremely complex conversation with someone that clearly shows she has a brain, and later they will swear she's charming but not that bright without ever having the self-awareness to realize their own cognitive dissonance. This is especially effective with straight men. * She has also encouraged a widespread belief that she is shallow and self-absorbed. This was very easy to do because of society's insistence that hedonism, and especially promiscuity, is proof of those exact character traits. In actuality, she is an intensely caring person. Part of the reason she works so hard to avoid becoming attached to people is when she does have an attachment to someone she'll go to hell and back for them without a second thought. * Ala's original outfit was an ugly full-body suit made of wetsuit material that looked like something from an old low-budget sci fi film. She hadn't been wearing that original outfit long before the strain of repressing herself for the sake of her Catholic upbringing came to a head and she impulsively created the first iteration of the outfit she wears now. This (figuratively) explosive event also marked her initial decision to use this persona to give free reign to her "sinful" side. (She had already been an atheist for a long time by this point - this was mostly a matter of reckless indulgence in what she had denied herself.) * She's known for her love of cocktails.